


Big Bad Harv

by AlexAnaheim



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Air Force, Brooding, Brotherhood of Steel (Fallout), Deathclaws, Gen, POV First Person, Survivor Guilt, Transformation, United States
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-12
Updated: 2017-10-12
Packaged: 2019-01-16 13:18:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12343452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexAnaheim/pseuds/AlexAnaheim
Summary: I don't entirely know why I turned into what I am, a hybrid of Deathclaw and Man...god's punishment perhaps for me turning my key when I was ordered to, like a good Missile Commander, on October 23rd, 2077. I've been this way for over 200 years, seen a lot..done a lot, some I'm proud of, some I'm not. The trek from Eastern Washington State, where I was stationed at Fairchild Air Force Base, to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts wasn't easy, but I've made something for myself here, I'm determined to turn back the clock as much as I can on the good old US of A, and I'll work my fingers..or claws, down to nubs to do it.





	Big Bad Harv

\--October 23rd, 2287, sometime in the morning--

 

My name was…is Harvey Heck, otherwise known as “Big Bad Harv”. I remember it like it was yesterday…hell I remember it like it was five minutes ago. I’ve lived over two-hundred and forty years and that day, those minutes, are burned into my memory forever. You might be thinking that I remember what happened October 23rd, 2077, 9:47 AM, Eastern Standard Time, when the first bombs actually dropped.

  
No, I didn’t see it, I was over two-hundred feet down a shaft in a hole, and I’m talking about the hour leading up to 9:47.

  
You see, back before the war, I was 32 years old, single, proud of my career in the US Air Force. I held the rank of Missile Commander, stationed at the Titan X missile field south of Moses Lake in Washington State, attached to Fairchild Air Force base out of Spokane…

 

 

\--October 23rd, 2077, 6:25AM PST (9:25AM EST)--

  
“The Red Sox are going to crush the Yankees this year at the World Series, I’m totally rooting for Boston.” Charlie said excitedly, sitting at the console to my right, further down the room from me. He was facing his console, but looking over to his left..ya know, those chairs were literally on a rail, you couldn’t actually swivel them, anyway…

  
Charlie Nash, he was a good kid. Lieutenant out of College, 22 years old…bright boy, really bright. Not every day you score so high on your ASVAB that you place right in to DM Triple C, oh, sorry, old habits die hard, I mean Deputy Missile Combat Crew Commander.

  
“I dunno Charlie, they’ve been dumping dollars into the Yankees for damn near 100 years, they can buy the talent they need.” I replied with a smile on my face, I had my green screen of my built in RobCo terminal to look at, hundreds of labeled buttons connected to hundreds of miles of circuit logic and computer banks..security cameras for each silo..20 TVs at least. It looked like we were running a space ship.

  
It wasn’t much longer after I said something that a klaxon started blaring from our two intercom speakers mounted above us, quickly shut off and replaced with a voice of our counterpart at Fairchild’s command center.

  
“Skybird! This is Dropkick with a Red Alert message in three parts! Break! Break! Break! Red dash Alpha, Red dash Alpha!”

  
We’d trained for this a thousand times, and at first, it seemed like just another drill. On reflex I shouted, “Standby to copy Message!” and Charlie, immediately as serious as I was replied, “Standing by!”

  
Like a choreographed performance, we pulled our Sharpie markers and our laminated red binders from the drawers to our left and began to write the incoming message down.

  
Our counterpart barked out the message: “Romeo. Oscar. November. Charlie. Tango. Tango. Lima. Alpha. Authentication: two, two; zero, zero; four, zero; Delta, Lima. Scenario Number: MX-CN91, repeat! Mike, X-ray, dash, Charlie, November, niner, one!” 

 

“I have a valid message, standby to authenticate!” I shouted once again, while Charlie replied “I agree with authentication also, sir!” We shoved our chairs down the rails towards each other, in front of the massive, red cabinet locked with keypads on either side, clearly labeled “FOR MCCC AND DMCCC ON DUTY ONLY”. We simultaneously punched in our separate codes and slid the door upwards. Inside were stacks of red cards on lanyards, stuffed inside hard plastic pouches next to tens of holotapes, all containing different launch codes and response scenarios to input into the computers.

  
We saw the corresponding response code on the labels in the small boxes where the tapes and code tags were contained, and grabbed one each under MX-CN91. We each snapped the plastic cases containing the red launch code card in half, pulling the slip of laminated paper out, compared them to the authentication message that we wrote down, and they matched. Still no different than any drill we’ve ever done.

  
“Enter launch code!” I ordered, to which Charlie replied “Entering launch code!”

  
He typed the code loudly onto his keyboard, DLG2209TVX..heh, another nugget of info burned into my brain. Both terminals showed a message in the center of the screen that blinked, beeping loudly with each blink, **LAUNCH ORDER CONFIRMED**.  
“Launch order confirmed!” I barked, then muttered…”Holy shit..”

  
“Insert holotapes!” I continued, “Inserting holotape!” came back Charlie as we inserted our two holotapes into the slots in the RobCo terminals infront of us, the mechanical groaning of tapes being spun up and read filling by ears.

  
Charlie saw text flying across his terminal, “Target Selection in Progress. Shanghai, Three Gorges Dam, Macau, Beijing, Xi’an, Chongqing, Chengdu, Tianjin, Hangzhou, Ji’an Strategic Rocket Forces Base, Guilin Continuity of Government Facility, Hechi Air Base, Yichang Nuclear Storage Facility, Hefei People’s Military Base…” he listed off, then paused…”Leadership bunkers and key infrastructure, they’re going for a decapitation strike on the commies!” he said, almost gleeful.

  
“Target Selection complete, time on target sequence complete, yield selection complete.” Charlie continued.

  
“Begin countdown, T minus 120” came over the intercom.

  
I mulled over what Charlie said, instinctively reaching for my key around my neck, taking it off, “Alright, lets do it. Insert Launch Key!” I ordered. “Stand by, launch key inserted!” replied Charlie.

  
“Roger, on my mark, rotate launch key to “set”. Three, two, one, mark.” I ordered, as we turned out keys simultaneously to launch prep mode, the status lights lit up like a Christmas tree for all 20 missiles, scattered across a 40 square mile missile field in the middle of the Eastern Washington desert and farmland.

  
Charlie shouted, “Roger, launch key at ‘set’!” and looked at me expectantly.

  
“Enable missiles!” I ordered. Charlie reached over to the missile panel and began flipping large red switch covers, flipping switches and pressing a button underneath each switch, one at a time, white status lights turning red, then green when the button was pressed. “One enabled, Two Enabled, Three Enabled, Four, Five, Six, Seven Enabled..”

  
While he was rattling off the missile statuses, I was grabbing my red phone receiver next to me and started dialing command numbers, “I wanna get this straight with someone on the god damn phone.” I mumbled to myself. Static…no line connections to anything. I was left to my own devices.

  
“T Minus 90.” Droned the intercom.

  
“Seventeen Enabled, Eighteen Enabled, Nineteen Enabled, Twenty Enabled. All missiles are enabled, sir!” Charlie shouted to me.

  
“Get Fairchild on the horn!” I barked to Charlie, “That’s not the correct procedure, sir!” he replied, shocked that we had broken our choreographed performance. “Try SAC, SAC on the HF,” I continued. “That’s not the correct proce-“ he began to counter before I cut him off. “FUCK the procedure, I want someone on the god damn phone before I kill a hundred and twenty million fucking people!” I screamed as my composure broke..this wasn’t a drill, this was it.

  
Everything finally came to a head, all scores were about to be settled amongst the world powers…everything I knew was going to be more or less over, and I was going to be an instrument of this destruction.

  
Charlie, exasperated, reached for the phone and started punching com lines, waiting for a brief moment as the intercom chimed “T Minus 60”. “I got nothing sir, they might have been knocked out already!” he shouted as he hung his phone up.  
“You don’t kill the enemy’s leaders Charlie! They know that, we know that, someone has gotta be there to turn it off!” I screamed…with more emotion that I had ever known myself to have.

  
Charlie, was shocked but not deterred, “Put your hand on the key, sir, and prepare to turn!” he ordered, as was his duty…this kid, 12 years younger than me, ordering me around like I was a junior officer.  
I shook my head for a moment and turned back to my console, putting my hand on the key, focusing, but still, all I could hear in the background of the countdown, and humming machinery, was the faint whine of rocket engines spooling up in the missile silos close to us, watching exhaust gases fill the silos our CCTVs monitored.

  
“Uh..Stand by to rotate launch key to launch on my command!” I ordered, regaining some semblance of procedure. “Standing by!” came the reply.

  
“T-minus ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five!” droned the intercom as I stared at the number counting down. I prayed to all that was holy, ‘Please just be a drill…please just be a drill.’

  
“Four, three, two, one, LAUNCH.” Finished the Intercom.

  
“Launch!” I ordered, and we both turned our keys.

  
A sudden artificially induced earthquake caused equipment to rattle, my coffee cup to fall off the edge of the console, shattering on the floor as rocket engines in our immediate area fired, silo doors blowing backwards and away from their silos as Titan Ten missiles slowly rose into the air in explosions of fire. “Missiles firing!” Charlie barked status.

  
We watched the CCTV monitors if all our birds left the proverbial bullpen..and I fell back in my chair. “Missiles away, begin silo and command center sealing procedure….we’re gonna get hit.” I mumbled as I looked down. And that was that, that was my contribution to the Great War of 2077..I turned a key, and millions upon millions were vaporized….and that wasn’t even the start of my personal hell.

**Author's Note:**

> Please review honestly, not sure where I'm going with this.


End file.
